1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to operation information providing apparatus for providing operation information on operation status of an image output apparatus. More specifically, the present invention relates to an operation information providing apparatus, an operation information providing method, an operation information providing program and the recording medium for providing an operating ratio, print cost and the like, and relates for an apparatus information obtaining apparatus for obtaining apparatus information.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, companies make efforts to reduce cost by using the concept of TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) that is a total amount of costs caused by owing apparatuses. For example, as for an image output apparatus such as a copy machine and a printer, the TCO can be calculated by checking the purchase price, a number of copies and the like of the owned image output apparatus and by checking running cost for consumable items such as toner and papers.
As for the number of copies and the like, the data can be collected by visually checking each image output apparatus by the user. In addition, for example, a method is proposed in which information such as the number of copies of the image output apparatus is collected via the Internet (for example, refer to a patent document 1).    [Patent document 1] Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2004-101545
However, other information necessary for calculating the TCO such as purchase time, purchase price, consumable item price, and maintenance cost of the image output apparatus needs to be checked one by one. Many companies own plural image output apparatuses purchased at different times so that there may be cases where it is not easy even to know the purchase price of each image output apparatus. In addition, depending on the model of the image output apparatuses, toner cartridges may be different so that it is not easy to refer to the price of the consumable item.
Further, even when these information can be obtained, comparison between image output apparatuses cannot be performed unless a calculation method for calculating the TCO is defined based on the obtained information such that the TCO is calculated by using the same calculation method for each image output apparatus. In addition, even though the TCO is calculated, it is difficult how to determine a cost reduction method based on the TCO.
In addition, the greater the number of image output apparatuses a customer owns, the worse such problem becomes. Thus, it is not realistic to calculate TCO and lay out a policy for TCO reduction on image output apparatuses in the customer's side in which there are daily other works.